


What's in your head?

by pollycrevette



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, The Sixth Sense (1999)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Minor Ben Hanscom, Minor Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Minor Beverly Marsh - Freeform, Minor Character Death, Minor Eddie Kaspbrak, Minor Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Minor Mike Hanlon, Strangers to Friends, Strangers to Lovers, but Bev and Ben are here more than Mike and Eddie, its very long, tag will be add with chapters, yes its kinda fluff sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:47:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23984812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollycrevette/pseuds/pollycrevette
Summary: [IT x The Sixth Sense 1999]"They move around me, continue to live as if nothing had happened."--I don't even know if there will be an end tbh: i wrote it and it took me so many times, just wanna share with you. If you like it, maybe i will find the courage to continue.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. Prologue

Since childhood, Stan knew something was wrong with him.

It all began this winter day, while his parents looked at him from the patio, and that he ran in the snow. It was cold, maybe too cold. The little Stan was looking at the smokescreen which escaped from his mouth when he was breathing out. He was already intelligent for his age and had no interest in running in the white powder that so rarely covered his garden floor. He did it anyway, to keep his parents happy and to occupy the time.

As he moved with difficult, the head down, a shadow had spread before him, contrasting with the white of the snow. He stopped short, and the impression to be sink in the ground by an unknow force at the same time as to have the feeling to fly had hit him. He was young, too young to understand. Then, slowly, he had raised the head. His breath had cut immediately.

Before him, a tall kid, with long limbs, falling of each side of his body. His black hair fell on his pale forehead; he stared him with dark and empty eyes, without emotion, without life. Just a huge and oppressive suffering.

Stan knew why.

A bloody vast hole was crossing his stomach.

“Who are you?” he had asked.

The child hadn’t answered. Stan's parents had run to him, grabbed him by the shoulders, and pulled him away from the newcomer, totally calm, and Stanley hadn't understood how.

“You talked with who, my big boy?

_Imaginary friends don’t exist, son.” They had said once in the house.

Stan hadn’t dared to say them the boy with he had talked was real.

At least, that he had been.

He just had smiled, and listened his mom sing before the piano the rest of the day.


	2. Screaming to the death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just Stanley and his fucked up life.

Stan turned the key in the lock, checked 3 times that the door was locked, then went down the steps of the porch.

“Ready for a new day, Stan The Man?

\- Certainly not. You know how Mondays are.”

As they walked in the cold, Stanley shot his friend a black look, who was laughing. The latter was no longer in school since a long time, and never missed a moment to make fun of Stan because he still goes there, even if he woke up early himself too to accompany him. His brow hair fell on each side of his face as he was laughing heartily, the head in back, in a position that Stan was pretty sure to see only on the TV, in the stupid emission that his parents used to watch. He turned his attention back to the road in putting on his shoulder bag properly, and they went to the high school in silence, because Stan didn’t like to talk. It was cold, as cold as that day, so he pulled up his scarf, recovering his ears and his curly hair.

11 years. 11 years since Stanley had seen one in his garden for the first time. 11 years that this thing, these visions, was repeated itself over and over. He used to it, a little, but the fear was always here. His parents, them, never got used to it. Maybe high school wasn’t a welcoming place, but it was better that his home. Stan preferred to be at school than sitting at the living room table, watching medicine pubs against cough pass on a loop at the TV, his parents quiet but so expressive next to him.

The cold was burning his hands, and he blew on it to warm them a minimum. He asked to himself how his friend did to take out only with a shirt in winter. What question, his friend was never cold.

“You seem very pensive, my friend. What’s going on in Stanley Uris’s head, this chilly morning?”

The brown one next to him got no answer, just a bored look. They arrived before the portal of the school. Stan stopped in the middle of the way to observe the building. His friend couldn’t accompany further away, then he walked alone, leaving him in the middle of the road. He risked nothing, anyway, he knew manage on his own.

The bell rang, and Stanley officially started his day with a class on Derry’s history.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was cold in the house. Stanley’s parents were preparing to go to bed as the teenager was finishing to wash the crockery. He had missed one hours of class without reason, it was his punishment to have skip school. The dark night had fallen since for a while, on this winter day, and everybody was tired. The only lights on were in the kitchen and in his parents' bedroom. The home was quiet and cold. Stan switched the kitchen’s light off and ventured to the stairs.

As he was climbing the stairs, a breeze grazed his ankles. The temperature of the home had lower considerably in a moment, and a cloud of breath appeared when he breathed out.

Stan wasn’t afraid by a quiet house. Stan wasn’t scared by a little problem with the thermostat. But Stan was terrified before his teenager, standing in the doorframe, with mad eyes and bloody hands.

“Follow me, I want to show you something that my father gave me this week-end” the unknow whispered, the most quietly possible, as if he knew that Stanley’s parents could heard him.

Stanley didn’t follow him. He stared at length the door of his bedroom, his lair, now inaccessible by the presence of this corpse. Instead, he hurried to his parents’ room. No matter if he looked like a child, to sleep with them, no matter if his father reprimanded him to be so weak, no matter if his mother worried more, Stan knew that his parents loved him, if only a little, and even without know the danger that he saw in his room, they will keep him with them this night.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So, what happened this time?” his best friend asked while Stanley was doing his homework, sitting in his pillows fort.

He had built this fort when he had 5 years old. He hadn’t destroyed it since. It was childish, but it was his secret place. The only one where he was safe. Richie, his only friend since ever, hadn’t laughed about it. The curly boy dropped his notebook and raised his head. His figurines were perfectly tidied before him, but he felt the necessity to put them each in turn.

“Nothing, Richie. Just as usual.

\- As usual isn't very explicit, Stanny. I need more information, more precise stuff.”

Stan didn't answer right away. His parents were still arguing downstairs. He could grasp some words, like “I don’t want to a crazy son, Andrea” or “it’s your son, Donald, you can’t reject him like that”. He was annoyed to their incessant fights. His friend too, given his sigh.

“My History teacher asked to the class if they knew what was in place of the school, before.” He says finally, still sorting his figurines.

When it had finished, he stood up and left the room to wash his hands in the bathroom. It was still too cold. The brown one followed him; he was waiting the rest.

“I raised my hand, and I said that was a place where they hanged people. He took the answer badly and started to stare at me.” His bitter tone got the upper hand. “He started to stare at me in the same way that the others, as if I’m a monster. As if I was a nature’s mistake.” His hands twisted and turned more and more fast under the water jet. “I said him to stop. But he had continued.” He was keeping turning the tap on and off, continually running his hands under the water. His skin was starting to get damaged. His scars on his hands and his wrists was started to sting because of the soap. “He looked at me with so much _pity_. He looked at me in the same way that his classmates looked at him before. So, I wanted to remind it him.” Richie held his breath next to him. There was nothing he could do to get Stan out of this incessant loop, watching him rub and rub his hands again and tear off his skin. “I reminded him that before, it was him the black sheep. Stanley the Stutterer, I said. Stanley the Stutterer Stanley the Stutterer Stanley the Stutterer. It pissed him off. He called me crazy and has called my parents.”

Stan looked at his now red hands. He had let his OCD go again.

Without another words, he came back in his pillows fort, throwing out the pale ray of light to his flashlight in his figurines.

He prayed.

And Richie watched him do, helpless.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You did what?!” he says, bordering on the cry.

Sitting in front of his parents, Stanley put carefully his cutlery. If he kept them in hand, he would do something stupid. It was hot, for once. The adolescent was regretting the absence of Richie. He could have calm down him, no matter the way.

“I found you a new therapist. You will see him tomorrow.

\- A therapist? But I don’t need a therapist!” he tried to prevent his voice from leaving in the octaves but failed in vain.

“You need of a therapist, Stanley. You can’t become rabbi in being… you.”

The curly boy took his words badly, becoming silent in front of his mad father. He had already seen therapist. A lot, by the way, but they hadn't changed anything.

Therapists don’t believe Stan. And you can’t help someone without believe him.

His mother seemed to do nothing to intervene, and even if he liked the fact that she was the only one to not called him crazy, he would like she defends him little more. Andrea Uris raised his head and met his look.

“Even if it results nothing, that will be a way to prove to people that you’re normal.” She says in grasping his hand put in the white tablecloth, trying to explain the choice.

He didn’t want to go there but didn’t want to be mean with his mother too. She had nothing to do with it.

“Okay Mom.” He answered reluctantly, his browns eyes anchored in those of his mother. It was like to show to Donald Uris that if he accepted, it wasn’t for him, but for her. It was totally useless because his father didn’t care, but it was a kind of little victory personal.

The evening, when he went in his bedroom, the cold attacked him once again. A creaking of door, and he understood that wasn’t Richie who went into the room by the window like he always did, but someone else. A head with a deformed face slipped into the doorway, and Stan held a cry back. _“She will do nothing to me. She will do nothing to me. She will do nothing to me.”_ He repeated him like a mantra. The woman came nearer quietly. Stan hadn’t the time anymore to run in his pillows fort to protects himself and pulled his blanket up on his head instead. Her putrid breath, full of death, winded up against the sheets while he felt her fingers trying to raise the blanket. It was dark, it was cold, and he was desperately alone and scared stiff, so he screamed.

He screamed to tear his vocal cords.

He screamed to have tears in his eyes.

He screamed to die of it himself.

When the presence disappeared, and the heat of the room came back, the steps of his parents resonating in the corridor, Stan got his breath back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk what thinking about it tbh, i just hope you like it  
> im really sorry if there are mistakes, english not my native language so ya know, i do my best


	3. Should have believe in

“Good afternoon, Stanley, I’m Zack Denbrough, but call me Zack. For this first session, we will get to know each other, to begin on good base. Alright?”

Stan didn’t know what he is doing here, in a winter afternoon, sitting on the couch at this man who seemed examine him to discover all his secrets. He had the impression to be a child, by the manner that he talked to him, but finish to nod the head. God, how he missed Richie and his jokes!

The man started to ask him simple questions, like “your day was good?” and “school is good?”, or “have you got friends?”. Stan just moved my head in response, his voice practically broken by the crisis of the last night. His mother had explained to Mr. Denbrough the situation, so they decided to do a game (actually, only the grownup decided, but that was amounting to the same thing). The curly boy found this stupid: he had 16yo, hell, but he accepted, because what did he have to lose?

“I will try to guess your thoughts, alright? If I succeed, you write me something about you in this notebook” The man showed a notebook with a fine binding and a color little inviting. “If I fail, you can take a step towards the door. You understand me, for the moment?”. Once again, the adolescent nodded, and the man continued. “If you reach the door, you can go away, and our next session is cancelled. But if you end up writing 5 things in the notebook, and will must come the next time, and explain me what your mother told me." Stan held his smile back, because even if at had only been half an hour since they had met, the man had already understood his way of operating. More comfortable with writing, having a lot of desire to leave, and dreaming of never coming back. The game was childish, puerile, and degrading for his honour. Despite that, he offered him his hands to accept rules, and the man shook it with a slight amused smile. Stan was risking big, but he knew that this man won't get anywhere. The teen had already planned everything: if he lost, he only had to write trivial things in the notebook and tell him the truth about himself. It will scare him away, like everyone else.

“You don’t love me, because you already met a lot of therapists and they never helped you. You say to you I’m like the others, and that all this is useless” Mr Denbrough started, who smile in seeing his patient scribble on the notebook. It was a bad beginning for Stan. He wrote he liked birds.

“Since childhood, you suffer a constant pressure because of your father. You had never dared to say him his dreams wasn’t yours, because of you don’t want an umpteenth fight between your parents, et annoyed your mother. You love your mother” he continued. His smile extended more while Stan took the pen back. This time, he wrote he was liking puzzles.

“This watch, on your wrist. It’s a gift from your father.” Stanley observed the man face to him. A smile appeared on his lips. He stood up and took a step towards the door.

Even if he was glad the therapist fails, reality hit him. This watch, he had taken it to his dad, when he had seen him throw it in his drawer because it no longer worked. Never his father would give him such a gift. Mr. Denbrough was pursing his lips now.

“You’re good at class and you never had problems there.” Stan went backwards, directing him towards the door.

It was during third grade. They had told them draw what they wanted. Stan had drawn a man with a bloody wrist whom he remembered seeing a few days ago, at park. He was walking among the birds, and when his eyes had met those of Stanley, the little boy had fled. After this, the school had organised a meeting to talk about his case and it was from this moment that his father began to consider him mad. Since, Stan only drawn birds. They don’t have meeting for birds.

“It wasn’t an important thing. It was just-” tried to reason Mr. Denbrough, as if he couldn’t imagine Stanley was a problem child. As if he couldn’t imagine that Stanley _had_ a problem.

It was exactly what Stanley had, though. A fucking problem, mental or real, that was eating him from the inside, and tearing his throat. He wanted to get rid of it. But how do you get rid of something that you don’t even believe in? Stan had desperately needed of someone to help him, because he couldn’t do it himself.

The teenager glanced at the door behind him. Just one step, and he will be able to go away. He returned his attention on his therapist.

“What I’m thinking now?” he asked finally, provocateur.

Mr. Denbrough stared at him. He saw the man tremble in hearing this voice, broken and trembling. He will damage it more if he continued to speak, and his mother will scold him, but he absolutely didn’t care. He felt this need. This need to make him hear how his voice, broken by the cries of fear and despair that he had uttered from the bottom of his heart, sounded. His voice broken by the sobs he had been trying to hide all night. Every night.

“I have no ideas”

Stan swallowed his saliva. He shouldn’t have hoped. Zack Denbrough was like the others. A man who tried to help him, who gave the impression of understanding him, when he absolutely didn’t.

“You’re someone nice, Mr. Denbrough, I’m sure. But you can’t help me.”

Then Stanley opened the door strongly, knocking the wall in a dull sound. He crossed corridors of the Denbrough's' home, taking the same way that going there, without worrying about Zack. He was angry with Mr. Denbrough for giving him this hope of being understood, but even more so with himself for having been duped so easily. He was angry to had believed it. He was angry to be different.

As he turned to take another corridor, he crashed into someone, and if two arms didn’t catch him, Stan would have fallen to the ground. He raised the head, still angry, to meet two ocean blue eyes that was staring at him with curiosity. Stan could have lingered on this meet, but all he was thinking about was running away. Running away far of Denbrough home, and never come back.

He should have lingered on this lost face. He should have lingered on this curious boy.

He should have believed in.


	4. Consciousness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan's week is as shitty as all the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god my chapters are so short i'm sorry about that

The way back was particularly bad. It was cold outside, and the corpses were floating around him. He had crossed the street with the sole desire to see Richie again, his head bowed, and his teeth plucking his lips. Once finally in the comfort of his fort, he grabbed his pills, swallowed them in one, and rolled up into a ball, praying that his best friend could join him. A gust of wind made him shiver more, and a brown head crossed the covers.

"Stanny! What's happening? I haven't seen you all day ...

_My father took me to see a therapist." The dark-haired one was going to ask for details, but Stanley gave him a look to silence him. He couldn't talk about it and didn't want to. He will tell everything later. "And you?

_I went to the library! "

The curly man wanted to answer a thousand and one things, but his throat was burning. He made it simple: "What did you go to do over there? "

Stan watched his friend's face sag slowly.

"I'm looking for someone. "

They did not ask more questions each. They both had a bad day, so they spent the night huddled together, trying to warm up despite the cold of the room. Stan hadn't spoken to his father again and was praying that he'd already left for work the next day.

It was not the case.

"Stanley Adam Uris. Doctor Denbrough called me last night. If your mother has convinced me not to wake you up, that won't stop me from talking to you. Get in this car immediately. "

Donald Uris' voice seemed much colder than the breeze that made his hair fly. He cast a sorry look at his friend, before getting into his father's car. He will have to go to high school without the presence of his best friend…

"How was your appointment?

_Good. "

His father made a face when he heard his broken voice. He hadn't had a fit that night, thanks to Richie, but his throat was still burning. Mr Uris seemed to want to ask more questions, but Stan purposely cleared his throat several times to make it clear that he was unwilling to speak much because of the pain. Surprisingly, it worked.

**\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

Stan was bored. Music echoed through the walls, the floor trembled with each bass hit, and his ears were almost bleeding. He wanted to be anywhere but here. Now he had to last until midnight with drunk teenagers and bad music.

It was the birthday of one of the boys in his class, Ben Hanscom. They had never spoken to each other, but their parents were friends, so he was invited. He was sure his mother had pressured him to invite him and be able to make friends.

But Stan didn't want friends. Stan already had Richie, and that was enough for him.

As he waited seated on the steps of the stairs, a red balloon silently flew past him. He followed it with his eyes, watching it hit the ceiling. Whispers came from above, he barely heard them. Stanley put his glass on a table not far away and started to climb the steps. The murmurs became louder and louder. He continued to climb the steps, his hand running slowly through the railing. The wood at first smooth and shiny became cracked and damaged. It was getting colder and colder. His gaze fell on the small door at the top of the stairs, wide open.

_"It was not I who took the master's horse!" said a voice full of despair. "It's not me, I swear! Let me go out"._

Stan shivered. A silhouette was curled up in the small available space of the closet. Cheeks streaked with tears; the young man was rolled up into a ball. There was a noise behind him, and Stanley came out of his thoughts with a strong urge to leave. When he turned around, a girl named Greta and another boy were looking at him, frowning. The boy looked behind him and saw the small door.

"You want to see what's out there?" he asked.

"No." he hoped from the bottom of his heart that Greta and her friend would leave quickly, and that he could run away from that cursed door. Far from this corpse.

"Do you want to make a game?" said the teenager.

Stan did not answer. He did not want. The girl took that for a yes.

"It's called 'locking up in the dungeon'" continued Greta. To her right, the big boy seemed to understand where she wanted to come. Stan was starting to understand slowly too.

"Yes. And you're the one locked up" he added, looking at the curly man.

Before he could answer, the two teenagers grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him into the small closet.

"No! No, stop!" Stanley tried in vain. But they kept their strong grip on him and pushed him harder in the small space.

They slammed the door behind him, and Stan screamed. He screamed again and again, without stopping, hoping that someone would hear him. Hoping someone will get him out of there. But it was a waste of time, the music was too loud, and his voice still too weak. His fists were bleeding from rubbing against the door full of splinters. _"let me out" "I didn't do anything" "I beg you, let me go"_ Stan no longer knew if it was him or the corpse repeating his sentences like a mantra, but his throat was burning. Tears flowed his breathing gradually stopped. He felt like he was dying. And he was going to die. Here in this closet, next to a stinking body, which lacerates his back with his nails, and made him want to vomit with his putrid breath. On the other side of the door, a thud is heard. He heard the music slowly drop. He cried louder. His lungs were burning, his throat was tearing, but he continued. Maybe it was his only hope of getting out of here. Footsteps sounded faintly, and Stan hoped that it was people who were going towards him, and not the teenagers who had locked him up, who were leaving.

"Stanley!" He heard from the other side of the door. He didn't know who he was, he didn't know who knew him, but he hit harder.

There were knocks back, and he knocked harder on the wood. The claws dug a little harder into his skin, he felt his blood flowing.

"Where's the k-k-key to that fucking duh-door ?!" He heard again, in a high, panicked voice. He wanted it to be Richie, but he knew it wasn't him.

No one answered, and Stan prayed that the voice would start speaking again, because it was the only thing he could hold on to, other than the claws that dug into his neck. He was crying now, and the blows redoubled.

"Damn, Ben, go get that damn key!" said a female voice.

"There is no key! It seems to be closed from the inside!" replied another, more masculine voice.

"Fuck, SS-Stanley, can you huh-hear me?!" cried a third voice (the same as the first). Stan focused on that one, because it never seemed to stop. It kept on shouting his name, in a loop, and the curly clung to it like an anchor point.

A blow struck him in the back of the head.

He lost consciousness.

**Author's Note:**

> leave a comment if you have a particular opinion, I would be happy to read your opinions!  
> hope you like it and that i find the courage to finish :)


End file.
